Tool request: a (GUI) Patrol Path Creator
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Throughout the years, there have been made many great tools, auxiliary programs, to easify or even facilitate certain aspects of modding.
I have no idea how people do create these programs. They’re awesome! (both the programs and those people creating them)
However, what lacks, sofar, is a Patrol Path Creator.
So, if there’s anyone with the ability and time to create such a program, it would be a great addition to the Freelancers modding toolbox!
What should it be capable of?
Well, ideally it should be able to load an entire system .ini, display that, and allow you to plot paths and export the data (either to a seperate file or into that system .ini. This is hugely complicated of course, and therefor less likely to be undertaken by someone.
Another option, less ambitious but nonetheless a tool of great help, would be a program similar to BL-Winter’s Tradelane Calculator:
The interface speaks for itself. A Path Calculator in this vein should have more or less the same parameters, but with other custom fields for the stuff that needs to be in a Patrol Path.
In stead of rendering the data for a number of tradelane rings, it should render the data for one straight Path, leading from StartX, StartY to EndX, EndY. So, to create an entire Path you’d need to use it a couple of times:
Actually when I go through the rather time-consuming process of calculating Paths manually, I use this tool to calculate the angle. What the TLC does not do, is creating the encounter zone — which has to be done manualy, and creating a Path is similar to that in several respects.
Well - this is my request
I feel a bit insolent just asking it — but as the proverb goes “nothing ventured nothing gained” -
CK256 was so kind as to point me at this:
CK256 wrote:
FL Dev has a misc tools section that contains a distance/angle calculator, you punch in the initial and final points and it does the math.That tool might indeed already provide the functionality I requested!
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You mean apart from completely destroying the systems themselves and often generating paths which are incorrect? Yeah, sure, works fine.
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The FLE one is only partly ok, even if you are sure the patrol path is correct you need to cut out the part you want and paste it into your own system.
FLE does screw up your system ini.
You can’t rely on it and you need to know enough about the ini file construction to see that it is faulty.
Don’t forget FLE was unfinished, in a state of re-write.
When I use(d) it I saved the new file and just did what I said above - cut the parts I wanted and pasted them into my own mod files. And fixed the naming discrepancies too.
So a tool would be great for those who need patrol paths.
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Necroposting ftw!
@ Dromedary
When using FLE to create patrol paths it crashes upon attempting to finalize the path. I can create each segment of the path but when I try to finish the path (by double clicking) FLE crashes. Any suggestions?
